About Last Night

by Adele Parks

  ‘Hello, Mrs Evans, it’s Philippa Foxton here. Steph’s friend. Do you remember?’

  ‘Oh yes, of course I remember you, Pip, dear. Yes. How is Mrs Blake?’ asked Mrs Evans, keenly. A slither of irrational irritation shimmied through Pip’s body. How come Steph’s cleaner slash babysitter called Steph Mrs Blake and yet she was comfortable calling Pip, Pip? Why not Ms Foxton? Pip wondered what she was lacking that would guarantee the gravitas that Steph seemed to acquire so easily. A cleaner of her own? A detached house? A husband, she thought bleakly.

  ‘Well, she’s bearing up. Considering the circumstances,’ replied Pip.

  ‘I imagine she’s being very brave. Such a dignified woman.’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Is she at his bedside?’

  ‘Constantly.’

  ‘Of course.’ This seemed to be the answer Mrs Evans was hoping for.

  ‘It’s very difficult, as you can imagine,’ replied Pip, as she wondered how she could pull the conversation around to the thing that she most needed to ask.

  ‘The poor woman. I’ve thought of nothing else. A hit-and-run! Fancy. Such a terrible thing. Such a lovely family. What a thing to have happened.’ Mrs Evans struggled to keep the animation out of her voice. Certainly, she wished this dreadful thing had never happened but since it had, she couldn’t help being rather excited to be involved. This was by far the most thrilling thing that had happened to Mrs Evans ever. This was a significantly better drama than the fight with her insurance company about her claim.

  ‘Absolutely,’ murmured Pip.

  ‘So, he’s still in a coma, is he?’

  ‘Yes, I’m afraid so. I’ll make sure you are among the first to know if there’s any improvement. I know you must be very worried as you’re so close to the family,’ added Pip. She nervously fiddled with the pencil that Stephanie always kept next to the phone.

  ‘Oh yes. I am, very. I was there babysitting the very night it happened, you know.’

  ‘Yes, Steph mentioned it.’ Pip’s heart pounded as she realised they were edging towards the thing she needed to talk about.

  ‘That’s right because she was at yours, wasn’t she?’ Mrs Evans had no doubt mulled over these details countless times for the entertainment of her friends, neighbours and any general passers-by that she’d managed to collar. An update from Pip (even if that update amounted to there being no news other than there was no change in Mr Blake’s condition) would give her more fodder for the gossips.

  ‘Yes, she was with me.’ Pip knew that she needed to get used to saying this.

  ‘Celebrating some good news, she said.’

  ‘Yes.’

  Mrs Evans tried to recall the details. ‘Haven’t you got some job altering clothes or something? Do you do hems? I’ve a pair of my hubby’s trousers that need taking up, if you are looking for work. I haven’t got round to them and they’ve been lying in a heap on the bedroom floor for weeks now.’

  ‘Actually, I was awarded a rather large contract with Selfridges, designing and making my own products,’ said Pip stiffly.

  ‘Oh, I see,’ said Mrs Evans. Clearly she didn’t and Pip felt somewhat disappointed that the announcement of her important news had failed to impress. In fact, truthfully, it was rather frustrating that her important news had been completely overshadowed by Julian’s dramas. His affair and his coma had out-trumped her successful bid for financial independence. Pip knew she was being a bit petty and possibly a bit sick but she couldn’t help herself. This was her moment, by rights she should be shining but instead she was fretting over her friend’s troubles. She didn’t resent it as such; she just wished it wasn’t the case. Why wasn’t life tidier? ‘You must have had a good night,’ said Mrs Evans, with a hint of censor and charmless finger-pointing. ‘The hour Mrs Blake finally rolled in! After midnight.’ The tut-tutting was implicit. ‘And it’s not often you see her tipsy. Still, at least she had the sense to leave her car at yours and get a cab.’

  Pip froze. She felt the blood in her body slow to a grinding halt. Stephanie came home after midnight and she was drunk. She didn’t bring her car home. Why not? Where was the car now? Oh my God. Oh my God. Oh my God. The words tumbled around Pip’s head, she wasn’t sure if she was blaspheming or praying. Steph had said she’d gone straight home. Why would she lie? Oh God, Pip didn’t want to think about the answer to that question.

  ‘After midnight? You’re certain?’

  ‘Absolutely,’ replied Mrs Evans firmly. ‘I remember it clearly because I’d just been watching The Krypton Factor on ITV. I do love that show. Well, frankly, I’m not interested in the show but I do like to see that Ben Shephard. Now, there’s a handsome man! I told the police as much. Not that I think Ben Shephard is handsome, no. No. I told them that I’d been watching The Krypton Factor. It had just finished. I think they were impressed. I know because I was just looking for something else to watch.’

  ‘Got to go,’ said Pip, and she hung up on Mrs Evans without even bothering to say goodbye.

  Pip ran to the drawer where Steph kept her keys. Their house was so grand that they had a detached garage. Pip grabbed the garage keys and dashed outside. She had to see the car’s absence for herself, if only to discern who Steph was telling the most lies to. Pip hit a brick wall when she found the Audi was snugly parked up in the garage, right next to the kids’ bikes, scooters, Rollerblades and wellingtons. Steph had driven it home. Yet she’d made a point of telling Mrs Evans that she’d caught a cab. Why? And she’d only got home after midnight. And where had she been? She’d made a point of telling Pip she’d gone straight home after leaving hers. What had she been doing?

  There was only one answer. Pip was struggling to breathe. It was unbelievable. Yet she believed it. It was such a mess. Yet it was clear-cut. Stephanie had put Julian in a coma. Stephanie had tried to kill Julian.

  Pip darted back into the house and rushed to Steph’s downstairs loo, she splashed cold water on her clammy face. How could this be? Stephanie, kind, thoughtful, careful Stephanie – a killer? Admittedly, she’d always said she’d rather be widowed than divorced but she’d been kidding, right? Every wife makes jokes like that. Steph wouldn’t try to kill her husband just to guarantee her social standing and avoid the embarrassment and hassle of divorce, would she? No amount of sympathetically donated casserole dishes were worth that, surely. She’d been kidding when she said she’d have killed Julian if he’d done what Dylan had done, hadn’t she?

  Apparently not.

  Pip leant her head against the mirror. The cool, smooth surface did nothing to clear her hot head. The small room swirled around her and her world fell apart.

  38

  Pip forced herself to go back out to the garage. She frantically circled the car to see if she could find any further evidence of the hit-and-run. She didn’t know what exactly to expect, not part of Julian’s brain on the windscreen necessarily but perhaps a dent in the car. There would be some signs of impact, wouldn’t there? A cold chill crawled over Pip’s skin, she felt as though she was being slowly lowered into a bath of ice when she spotted a dent and a long scratch on the front of the car on the left-hand side. Pip’s legs buckled under her.

  She was torn. She had to get to Stephanie as quickly as possible but she didn’t want to drive this car, this weapon. Was it tampering with evidence? The thought was crushing.

  ‘Fuck!’ she said aloud. She glanced around, wondering if she’d attracted the attention of the neighbours. ‘Fuck, Steph. How could you?’ Pip’s car was still at her house. What choice did she have? She jumped in and started up the engine. She had been itching to drive this car, ever since Julian brought it home, how could she have imagined – even in her wildest dreams – that the scenario would be so gross and tragic?

  Pip drove at a dangerous speed and in a careless fashion all the way to the hospital. She was certain she’d been caught by a traffic camera as she scooted through the amber lights in the town centre but she couldn’t worry about that n
ow.

  Pip parked across two spaces. As she jumped out of the car another driver, looking for a spot, started to yell at her. He was a bald guy with a tattooed head and he had two young children in the back of his car. Pip thought that he shouldn’t use that sort of language in front of little kids but she didn’t waste time telling him so, nor did she bother to straighten up the car. She was pretty sure that when she came out of the hospital he’d have added another dent to the Audi. She didn’t care.

  Pip charged along the corridors, nearly colliding with two separate wheelchairs. No one yelled, ‘Where’s the fire?’ because it was a place full of emergencies and desperate people, although the old guy who was wheeling himself and his catheter towards the foyer shop did point out that if, in her haste, she’d dislodged his bag, she’d have come off worse than him.

  Pip flew into Julian’s room and without stopping to check whether they were alone she demanded, ‘So where were you, Steph?’

  Stephanie glanced over at her father-in-law. He appeared startled. Steph surmised he must have finally nodded off in the armchair, hiding behind his crossword, and she’d simply failed to notice. Pip’s hasty entrance had jolted him awake.

  ‘Harold, would you mind going to the cafeteria and getting me a hot chocolate, please?’ asked Steph, with apparent calm. Pip was horrified by her friend’s composure. Pip felt hysterical and she hadn’t tried to kill her husband! How could Steph be so poised? Her husband was in a coma, for fuck’s sake.

  Harold said he was pleased to stretch his legs if Pip was prepared to keep Steph company for a few moments. In a low voice, but one Steph could hear perfectly well, he added that he didn’t like her to be alone. Pip felt a surge of anger shoot through her body. Would old Mr Blake be quite so considerate of his daughter-in-law’s feelings if he’d known she was the one that had put his son in hospital? No, he bloody wouldn’t. Steph did not deserve all this attention and consideration, it was disgusting. He asked if he could bring Pip a hot chocolate too but she abruptly refused. He said he’d bring back crisps or sandwiches if there was anything appetising. She nodded although the thought of eating anything made her feel sick. The moment he left the room, Pip turned back to Steph and demanded again, ‘So where were you?’

  ‘I told you. At home,’ replied Steph, knowing at once what Pip was talking about, just as though they’d had the conversation about alibis only a moment before.

  ‘But you weren’t. That’s a lie.’ The word ‘lie’ sat swollen and raw between them. ‘I checked with Mrs Evans. She said you got back after midnight! You left mine at seven thirty and yet you didn’t get home until midnight. That’s four and a half hours lost. Where were you?’ demanded Pip.

  ‘Who are you? Nancy Drew?’ replied Steph crossly.

  Pip gasped. She wasn’t used to sarcasm from Steph. She’d expected a flustered denial or a tearful, heart-wrenching confession but not cold sarcasm. Pip felt she didn’t know Steph at all. ‘You used to say you’d rather see Julian dead than be divorced.’

  ‘Have I said that?’ Steph glanced at her husband punctured with tubes and couldn’t believe she might have said that, even as a joke.

  ‘Yes, you have. A number of times,’ insisted Pip firmly.

  ‘Maybe, before we married.’

  ‘After.’

  ‘As a joke.’

  ‘I thought so but maybe you were serious.’

  ‘Oh, Pip. That’s just the sort of thing people say before they have any idea what death means. Or what marriage means either, come to that. Besides, stop talking about Julian as though he’s dying, he might be able to hear us,’ she added in a whisper.

  Pip dropped to her knees and took hold of Steph’s hand. Steph needed to face what she’d done and confess. It would be much better all round. It was only a matter of time before the police worked it out and then – oh God, Pip couldn’t think about what might happen then. An arrest, a court case, jail – the children! She had to get her friend to admit to what had happened. She tried another tack. She would elicit a confession. ‘It was a wet night, Stephanie, and you’d had a drink at mine,’ she said tentatively. She hoped her tone seemed understanding.

  ‘Yes, a drink, I wasn’t drunk, you make me sound like a drunk,’ said Steph wearily.

  ‘But you were drunk when you got back to yours, Mrs Evans told me.’ Steph would not look at her friend, she continued to stare at the wall behind Julian’s bed, it was painted a peach colour, Steph had never been fond of peach, now she hated the shade. ‘When and where did you get drunk?’ insisted Pip.

  ‘This is absurd,’ said Steph quietly. Her passivity unnerved Pip, it seemed sinister. Too calm and collected. Shouldn’t Steph be ranting or tearful, outraged or indignant? Her silence pretty much amounted to a confession.

  ‘It’s a new car. You aren’t used to it. It’s big. Under the circumstances . . .’ Pip broke off.

  ‘What? What are you saying?’ Steph finally snapped her head in Pip’s direction but Pip wished she hadn’t. She looked furious. Pip thought of Medusa and wondered whether she might actually turn to stone.

  ‘Perhaps you went to the hotel just to talk to him,’ reasoned Pip quietly.

  As she’d dashed over to the hospital she’d thought about how the events must have panned out on Tuesday night at Highview. She’d imagined Stephanie driving up the gravel path, heading towards the car park. She’d probably planned on shaming Julian or maybe just getting a look at the other woman. Pip imagined Steph walking in on her husband and the other woman. They would have yelled at one another. Steph might have threatened him with losing everything he had, including the boys. That was the usual way these things went. Then Steph would have marched off, Julian might have followed her, perhaps the row had escalated in the car park. Pip could see it all so clearly. Steph might have tried to drive away and Julian had got in front of the car somehow. Nothing premeditated, just a terrible, terrible accident.

  Pip continued. ‘I don’t imagine you went there expecting to cause this sort of trouble. Not to cause any trouble at all. Even though Robbie thinks it’s usually the spouse that’s the culprit in a case like this,’ she added thoughtlessly.

  ‘Who’s Robbie?’ asked Steph, puzzled.

  ‘He’s – well, my boyfriend.’ Pip wondered if she was being accurate in calling Robbie her boyfriend, she wasn’t sure, it was difficult to know. Steph was the person she’d normally discuss exactly this sort of matter with but it was awkward, bordering on the impossible, to chat about the matter with Steph right now. ‘Kind of my boyfriend. I think. You know, he’s the man I met on the train going into London on Monday. I told you about him.’

  Steph couldn’t remember ever hearing his name mentioned. She stared at Pip in bewilderment.

  ‘We’re sort of an item now,’ added Pip.

  ‘An item?’

  ‘I haven’t had a chance to tell you all about it,’ muttered Pip defensively.

  ‘I’m so sorry my husband’s critical condition has curbed your updates on your sex life,’ snapped Steph, with uncharacteristic aggression. ‘So, this Robbie thinks I’m responsible and you believe him.’

  ‘I just—’

  ‘A man you met on Monday?’

  ‘No, no, I’m not saying that,’ said Pip helplessly. She was saying that, in fact, but it just didn’t sound that great when Steph played it back to her. ‘He’s a really nice guy.’

  ‘Oh I don’t doubt, another one of your lust-haves that you were always so famed for.’

  ‘That’s not fair, Steph.’

  ‘Isn’t it?’ They fell into an embarrassed and angry silence until Steph asked, ‘How long have we known each other, Pip?’

  ‘Over thirty years,’ said Pip with a tired sigh. She understood Steph’s point but just didn’t think it proved her innocence. ‘I imagine you probably just went to the hotel to really see if Julian was there. But you were upset and it was raining.’

  Steph stared at Pip stonily.

  ‘I’m just saying that u
nder the circumstances it would be likely that you had an accident.’ Stephanie gasped but Pip was determined to carry on. ‘And, you know, that might mean you panicked. And since then you’ve been – I don’t know – confused and you’ve felt that you didn’t dare tell anyone what really happened. Even me.’

  ‘This really isn’t the time to start getting fanciful, Pip,’ warned Steph.

  ‘I’m not.’

  A silence dropped between them. It was like a sudden storm cloud, dark, all-engulfing and promising nothing but a downpour.

  ‘You think I could have done this?’ Steph spoke in a whisper as she pointed to her husband. Pip didn’t answer and all they both heard was the hum of the hospital machines.

  Pip didn’t want to think it but yes, yes she did. ‘Where were you, Steph?’ she asked. Tears were stinging her eyes like small scratches.

  Steph considered. Should she simply tell Pip about Subhash? It wasn’t something she wanted to confess to and certainly not now, not over Julian’s still body. There had been many, many occasions when Steph had been tempted to tell Pip about Subhash but she never had. Not because she thought Pip might judge her – Steph accepted that she deserved to be judged and, besides, no one could judge her quite as severely as she judged herself – Steph’s reticence was down to the fact that Subhash was married. Her friendship with him (for want of a more accurate label) was not just her secret, it was his too. And, more than that, any potential fallout from revealing the secret threatened to damage not just her marriage but to shatter his too, to hurt not just her spouse but his too. One thing Stephanie was surer of now, more than ever, was that she would never ever want another woman to feel the way she’d felt when she found Julian’s phone. It was sickening. No good would come of her confessing to her relationship with Subhash now. Only harm.

  ‘I can’t tell you,’ whispered Steph. She squeezed her friend’s hand. ‘But I’m begging you to trust me.’ Pip shook her head ever so slightly and Steph thought hard about how she could get her on side. ‘Who knows that my father is a gambling addict?’ she asked.